


Joyeux

by dynamicsymmetry



Category: Harsh Realm
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 10:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dynamicsymmetry/pseuds/dynamicsymmetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The spirit of the season comes to us all. Even grudgingly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joyeux

It was, Hobbes thought as he hunkered down in the meager shelter of the pile of rubble, much too cold for anything but inside and blankets and hot chocolate and maybe also a certain someone wearing something soft and possibly silky.

So of course he was out in it, with a severe shortage of other options. The rubble took some of the edge off the wind, but the snow came down on you no matter where you were. And it was thick snow, too, great fat white flakes that stuck together in way that would have delighted him in his childhood, perfect as it was for packing and rolling into balls that flew through the air with the greatest of ease, and occasionally also with deadly accuracy.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember that world. Warmth, both figurative and literal. It had definitely been warmer, anyway. Happy screams of happy children. Sleds and snow angels. And Christmas lights, all over the houses and up and down the streets, stores full of magic, and the cheerful and innocent lust for possession that is the prerogative of children everywhere at this time of year.

This time of year. And what here, now? Darkness, cold, danger all around. Dexter shivered under his coat, close to his chest, little warm body vibrating like one of the wind-up toys he might have wanted then. He was hungry. They both were.

The streets around them were empty, the inhabitants either chased away by the encroaching fence, or huddling in darkened buildings, trying to be as unnoticeable as possible. Small town. Suburb. Barely a village. Territory to be won, handed over wrapped in wire and sensors, placed under a tree. Merry Christmas, Santiago.

"That's really terrible."

Hobbes looked up at the man crouched beside him, eying him with weary irritability. "What are you talking about?"

"The whole Christmas tree analogy thing. It's bad."

Hobbes stared. Blinked.

"Because," Pinocchio continued, "because you're going in a direction where you're eventually going to have him in a Santa suit, and it's going to hurt my head."

Hobbes stared and blinked again. "How," he asked slowly, "did you know about that?"

Pinocchio smirked. "Something that awful is hard to miss."

"Yeah, okay." Hobbes shook his head. "Never mind."

"Right." Pinocchio turned his attention back to the street, peering out over the crumbled brick wall, gun at the ready. "Try to think about something normal, please? Maybe try to think us up some food?"

"I'm trying not to think about food. It hurts." Hobbes kicked out a stray brick, wincing as his toe collided with it. "I could think about my shoes." He drew his knees up to his chest and peered glumly down at his feet. "I swear, they're going to fall apart any day now."

Pinocchio glanced back over at him, looking pointedly at the small trembling bundle under Hobbes's coat. "You know, it's not like we have to be hungry."

Hobbes sighed. "Okay, how about I don't think up bad analogies to distract myself from how much my life fucking sucks right now, and you come up with another way to sound like a big scary tough guy?"

Pinocchio put his hand up. "Hold it. How is me pointing out a basic fact trying to sound like anything?"

"You've pointed it out like a million times now. It's getting kind of old, is all. You think if I get hungry enough, I'll change my mind?"

Pinocchio's eyes narrowed. "Something like that, yeah."

"I'm not going to. So drop it."

"Sure. Fine. Whatever." Pinocchio turned back to the wall again, eyes scanning the intersection. There was a period of chilly silence, again, both figurative and literal. Definitely colder, anyway. The wind drove snowflakes into the ground. Hobbes could hear them, a soft sound like sand hitting a pane of glass.

"It's almost Christmas," he said.

Pinocchio grunted. "Hate Christmas."

"You're a mean one, Mister Grinch."

Pinocchio rolled his eyes. "And I guess you love it, right? Sing carols, hang stockings, trim the fucking tree?"

"I like it, yeah." Hobbes shifted against the wall, trying to find a position that wasn't quite as uncomfortable as every other position. "Back home family would go to my mom's house. Have dinner. We'd have a good time." He looked up and around at the snow, the blank grey sky, the ruined buildings. "Doesn't really apply here so much," he added softly.

"Spent my last Christmas in Sarajevo," Pinocchio said. Hobbes glanced quickly at him. "Last Christmas in the Real World, I mean." He cleared his throat, a little awkwardly. "Not that different, I guess."

"You were in Sarajevo?"

"For a few days, yeah. Fun place."

"I was there after Christmas. I guess by then you were—"

"Stateside," Pinocchio said shortly.

"Right." Hobbes looked down at his hands, chapped and cracked with the cold. Gloves. He'd also like a decent pair of gloves. Amazing how many things were hard to get hold of when society collapsed. He looked back over at Pinocchio, who was rather carefully not looking at him.

"Sorry."

"'S fine."

It had taken forever for Pinocchio to open up enough to tell him, haltingly, with the aid of a sizeable amount of alcohol. And even then, with the unspoken but clear condition that it was not something he wanted spoken about again.

Well. Like only one of them had carte blanche to be tactless?

"Get some sleep, Hobbes."

"Okay. You get tired, you wake me." Hobbes shifted again, trying to find a piece of debris that was close to pillow-shaped. He wondered vaguely if it was cold enough yet to actually freeze to death. He trusted Pinocchio would stir him if it got to be that bad.

Trusted.

"I really am sorry."

"I said, don't worry about it." He opened his eyes. Pinocchio was still not looking at him, and his voice was even gruffer than normal. "You go dance with your sugar-plums."

"You really don't like it, do you?"

"Christmas? No."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" Pinocchio turned back to him, something fierce in his eyes and voice that made the wind suddenly seem much warmer. "Because it's a fucking joke, is why not. Because we all get together in peace and harmony, and miracles happen, and at the end of it we all take away a special little part of it to keep us warm year round. Because it's bullshit. I've seen it. It's a fucking after-school special dressed up as a holiday." He paused. "And I hate Santa."

"What? Why?"

Pinocchio glared at him. "I had a bad experience."

"You had a—" Hobbes echoed dumbly.

"I had a _bad experience_," Pinocchio repeated. "Doesn't bear going into. Anyway, you said it: it doesn't apply here. So go to sleep."

Hobbes hunkered back down, Dexter still shivering against him. Pinocchio gazed back at the roads beyond the wall. Off in the distance there was a rattle of gunfire, but it came no closer. The snow fell harder, moving white on black. Hobbes slept and dreamed dreams utterly devoid of plums of any kind.  


* * *

  
The next day they moved on, trudging over snow-covered sidewalks and past houses with windows like empty staring eyes. Once or twice they saw signs of habitation; fresh footprints and at one point a thin line of smoke rising from a chimney. Dexter trotted along at their heels, steam rising from his nose in little puffs. Hobbes walked and tried to distract himself from his aching, freezing feet by thinking about his stomach. Then he tried to distract himself from his empty stomach by thinking about his feet. Then he gave up, disgusted. Easier to resign oneself to misery.

Had Christmas come? Was it today? Days, weeks away? He had no idea. Time was the vaguest of concepts now.

And Pinocchio was right, he thought as they pushed a path through a drift that nearly hit their thighs. Christmas had fuck-all to do with this. Maybe it wasn't bullshit, not back home, but here, what place did it have? He didn't even know exactly what day it was.

Christmas in Sarajevo. He thought about that, about what it had been like. Probably as it had been when he'd been there; grenades and snipers and death around every corner. But when he'd been there it had been just another day. His Christmas had been spent in a warm barracks with a turkey dinner.

Pinocchio had spent his dodging bullets. And then a week or so later he had lost everything. He could see how that might put one off the holiday season.

And there was the Santa thing. He'd have to try to find out more about that. Maybe with the careful application of some vodka.

He glanced over at the man beside him, walking head down and eyes fixed stubbornly forward, jaw set and hand resting, as it always did, on the butt of his gun. Ready to fight, ready to kill, not so ready to do anything else.

Had he always been this way, Hobbes wondered? How much was nature and how much nurture? Had he been born fighting? Somewhere down in the depths of him, was there a version of him that retained some innocence, some part of him untouched by brutal cynicism? Was he a solid block, or were there different sides and different faces, like boxes within boxes? Or those Russian nesting dolls, maybe. Crack one open and there's another one, looking blankly up at you as if to say, _yes? Have you been helped?_

Had he ever had a Christmas he didn't hate?

"That's not much better."

Hobbes glanced over at him again, at the amused slant of his mouth and his narrowed eyes, and made a wild assumption.

"The nesting doll thing?"

"You just won't give it a rest, will you? I especially liked the expression part."

"I thought it was a nice touch." Hobbes smiled grimly, kicking up a flurry of snow. "Apt."

"Why do you care what's going on in my head?"

"Why do you find it so hard to believe that I might care about you, period?" Hobbes's voice was calm and carefully level, offsetting the bluntness of the words. Pinocchio looked surprised, then sullen.

"Maybe I find it hard to believe that anyone would waste their time. Then again," he added, "That kind of time-wasting is pretty typically you, isn't it?"

Hobbes laughed, shook his head. "Fuck you."

"Yeah, fuck me."

They had come to another little cluster of buildings, abandoned shops long since stripped of their goods, low office buildings with blackened plaques and empty parking lots. In the center of this was a small roundabout with a fountain on a concrete island in its middle, the dark iron of it shocking against the white of the snow. Pinocchio gestured at the fountain.

"Florence is meeting us there."

"How long do we wait?"

Pinocchio looked around the square, considering the benches, the blackened storefronts, the half-broken sign set over one of the doorways and swinging in the breeze, its remaining letters cryptically spelling out "T's DIN". "A while. It's exposed, but we don't have to be out there the whole time. And the fence hasn't made it anywhere near this far yet. We can stick around a day or so." He headed off in the direction of one of the stores, Hobbes following and Dexter dancing around both their heels.

They made camp in a drugstore, "camp" for them meaning a corner with limited exposure where they could leave packs, and a circle of crude and hastily constructed boobytraps. The drugstore looked like no one had used it as such for years. The glass in the windows and display cases was all smashed, and the shelves were empty of anything even remotely useful. But there was at least a roof this time, and better ground to hide and hold. Dexter found the sad-looking remains of a stuffed teddy bear clutching a small red heart defiantly in its fuzzy paws, and ran up and down the aisles shaking it furiously and growling to himself. Pinocchio eyed this with barely controlled annoyance.

"I'm gonna go look around," he muttered. "Won't be long."

"Fine." Hobbes knelt down and grabbed at the bear, pulling it away at the expense of a few tufts of fake fur and tossing down the aisle. It hit the pharmacy counter and bounced over the side, Dexter tearing after it. Pinocchio rolled his eyes and stalked towards the door, disappearing out into the white.

Dexter had retrieved the bear, now nearly decapitated, and was curled in a corner with it, worrying at its sad floppy limbs. Hobbes watched him for a few moments, poked around the store for a few more, then returned to the small pile of gear, unzipped his pack and pulled out a pencil and a small battered notebook, settled down and began to write.

_My dearest Sophie,_

_Christmas. Or close to it, at any rate. It's a white one here, not that it counts for much. No caroling or hot eggnog or presents under the tree for me. _

_I've heard that Christmas tends to make people miss even more intensely the things they've lost. I'm not finding that's true for me. Maybe I've lost enough to miss it all year round. Maybe it's because Christmas doesn't feel like it even exists here. Here it's just another day._

Hobbes let the pencil drop slowly away from the paper, tilting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. Just another day. All it would ever be. No visions. No sugarplums. No goddamn Santa. Maybe, if they were lucky, a midnight clear. The clouds outside did appear to be lifting.

There seemed to be weights on his eyelids. The past few days he'd slept badly and it was catching up with him. He shouldn't, he knew he shouldn't, with Pinocchio gone and no one to stand guard. But he was out of the wind and warm for the first time in what felt like weeks. And dimly behind his eyes he could see dancing candy canes and toy soldiers battling giant rats. He wanted to watch them.

The last thing he was aware of was Dexter's warm furry body settling against his leg. He lifted a weary hand to scratch behind his ears, and then floated away completely.  


* * *

  
"Hobbes. Hobbes, wake up. It's on fire."

"Wha?" Hobbes sat up unsteadily, rubbing his eyes and looking around blearily. The room was dimly lit. It was getting on to dusk outside. "Whassafire?"

"The fire." Pinocchio pointed calmly to the small blaze he'd started in a metal pail on the floor under the broken window. "It's on fire. I just thought you should know."

Hobbes blinked at him. "You're a freak," he said. "You know that, right?"

"I've been told, yeah."

Hobbes sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"

Pinocchio reached around to the side and produced a small cooking pot, out of which steam rose in a delicious-smelling plume. Dexter lay close by, gazing up at it greedily. "Red beans and rice. Not a turkey dinner, but I guess it's better than the usual."

"The usual—" The usual was generally stale bread and jerky that might be beef and might also be any number of other things. Hobbes forked some of the pot's contents into his mouth and let his eyes fall closed with pleasure. "Pinocchio, this is—Food like that is like gold. Where did you find it?"

"Same place I found these." He reached over to the side again, rooting around in a bag stuffed behind his pack. He turned around, and Hobbes could see a carefully suppressed grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

In his hands was a pair of boots, new glossy leather glowing in the firelight. Hobbes felt his jaw drop.

"Where did you—the hell—?"

"I'm pretty sure they're the right size. There wasn't a lot of selection."

"Pinocchio..." Hobbes had let the pot settle in his lap in his surprise, and he jumped a little as the heat finally made its way through his pants. He half set, half-tossed it to the floor by his feet, Dexter lunging for it immediately. Hobbes let him lunge. He stared back up at Pinocchio, feeling slightly bewildered.

"People get killed for boots like that."

Pinocchio nodded soberly. "Yes, they do."

Hobbes's eyes widened even more. He hadn't thought that was possible. "You didn't—"

Pinocchio's façade finally cracked, split into a grin. He shook his head. "I don't like you _that_ much, Hobbes."

"Yes, but—" Hobbes was handling the boots, turning them in the light, fingering the leather, the crisp laces. In the Real World they would have been top of the line. Here they were the equivalent of a Porsche. "Where did you get them?"

"If I told you, you'd know." Pinocchio snatched the pot away from Dexter, casually flicking the dog a forkful as he did so.

Hobbes had slipped off his old pair, stretched his aching feet and put on the new ones, practically groaning with pleasure as his feet slid into place in the curves made for them. The fit was a bit tight; either the shoes were slightly too small or his feet had swollen. But to wear something without holes, without weak places, without an inside worn to shreds...

He looked up sharply. "Why did you do this?"

Pinocchio opened his mouth, closed it again, shrugged. "Had to do something to stop you whining about it."

"Pinocchio." Hobbes was starting to smile. "I mentioned they were wearing out once."

"Yeah. Well." Pinocchio held the pot back over the fire, stirred it a bit, took a big bite. "Oo err owd," he said around the beans.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said. You were loud. About the boots. Complaining. Oh, what the hell." Pinocchio tossed the pot down between them and shot him an exasperated glare. Hobbes was smiling even wider.

"Caught you."

"What are you talking about?"

"Giving a shit about me. Caught you." Hobbes reached for the beans and took another forkful, chewing rapturously. "Should've hidden it better. Christ, this is good."

"You're imagining things."

"No, really, it's good."

Pinocchio rolled his eyes. "That's not what I—"

"Mike. You paid attention when I said my shoes were about to fall apart, remembered that you heard it, went out and found me a new pair, which you probably had to trade an organ or something for. If that's not giving a shit I'm not sure what is."

Pinocchio raised his hands in a 'don't shoot' pose. "Fine. Caught me. Happy?"

"Ecstatic."

"And I'm ecstatic for you."

Hobbes looked down at his feet. "I didn't get you anything."

"What?" Pinocchio was poking at the coals in the bucket, trying to kick them back up into something resembling an actual fire. "What do you mean?"

"That is standard gift-giving procedure. You have one for me, I have one for you, we exchange."

"What on God's Earth—"

"Christmas, Pinocchio." Hobbes was gazing earnestly at him. "This." He pointed down at his feet. "This is Christmas."

Pinocchio swatted at the boots with his coal-poking stick. "Those are shoes," he said. "You want to give me a present, how about you shut up for a while? You're giving me a headache with all this Christmas crap."

"Okay." Hobbes settled back against the wall. "Can I think up some analogies?"

"Quietly."

Dexter had trotted over and laid down against Hobbes's leg again. Hobbes stroked him, staring over the fire and off into the darkened store. The wind had picked up outside, howling around the square and battering signs against the buildings. In the morning there might be nothing left of "T's DIN". Somewhere out there Florence was heading towards them. Somewhere out there Santiago was holed up in a snug room with a good fire going. Maybe some eggnog. Maybe some new land under his tree. But somehow Hobbes doubted that anyone in Santiago City felt as warm and cozy as he did at that moment.

"Mike."

"Mm?"

"Merry Christmas."

He got only silence in response, which was what he'd been expecting. He settled back and began to compose a letter in his head, and was far enough into it that he almost jumped out of his new boots when Pinocchio spoke.

"Merry Christmas, Hobbes."


End file.
